Is Conscientiousness Compatible with Creativity?

When it comes to achievement, Conscientiousness is a great thing. All else being equal, the person who has tenacity, persistence, stamina, and grit will be more successful then the person who is lazy and unmotivated. Over 25 years of research supports this commonsense view: Conscientiousness is the most consistent and best predictor of both job and academic performance. Clearly, long-term planning and self-control is useful when one is directing his or her self toward a standardized form of achievement. But what about creative achievement-- where the goal is often never really known ahead of time and one must constantly fight the status quo and deviate from the standard path to create something new, perhaps even revolutionary?

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic found that creative ability was a better predictor of an original final year dissertation than Conscientiousness whereas more conventional well-defined assignments such as written examinations and continuous assessment (e.g., class participation, attendance, and assignments) were better predicted by Conscientiousness. Additionally, they found that creative individuals reported a preference for creative rather than conventional forms of assessment. In fact, creative individuals least preferred multiple-choice exams, timed written examinations, and continuous assessment, when these forms of assessment formed the largest contribution to their GPA!

Other researchers have found interesting interactions between Conscientiousness and creativity. Laura King and her colleagues found an interaction between creativity and Conscientiousness such that for those individuals with low creative ability, higher Conscientiousness was related to more creative accomplishments whereas for those individuals with high creative ability, Conscientiousness was negatively related to creative accomplishments. They suggest there may be two different pathways to creative accomplishments:

"One way to produce creatively is through high openness and high creative ability, as most conceptualizations of the creative personality would suggest. However, it is possible for one who lacks creative ability to produce creatively through high conscientiousness."

Jennifer George and Jing Zhou found an interaction in a business setting. Like prior studies, they found no direct relationship between Conscientiousness and employee creativity (as measured by supervisors) among workers. However, for employees high in Conscientiousness, creativity was lower if they were closely monitored and working in an environment where (a) coworkers were not helpful, (b) coworkers provided them with inaccurate information, or (c) coworkers contributed to an overall negative work situation. In contrast, employees low in Conscientiousness displayed the lowest levels of creativity when they were closely monitored regardless of the environment. Veena Prabhu and her colleagues have found that motivation orientation also plays a role. While they also found that perseverance was not directly related to creativity, when people were intrinsically motivated (motivated achieve for the intrinsic joy and pleasure of doing so), perseverance was positively related to creativity whereas when people were motivated to achieve for extrinsic rewards (e.g., a "good job!", money), Conscientiousness was negatively related to creativity.

Some people may work hard because of personal reasons-- such as achievement and self-enhancement-- whereas others may do so because of a sense of responsibility or duty (also related to "obsessive passion"-- see "Why Your Passion for Work Could Ruin Your Career"). A need for achievement is related to perseverance and grit whereas those who score high in dependability are more concerned about being careful, responsible, and orderly than being particularly ambitious. Therefore, according to the latest thinking, grit is only a subset of Conscientiousness, but isn't all there is to Conscientiousness. Researchers have criticized traditional measures of Conscientiousness for confounding the two components by combining them under one broad factor.

If we split up Conscientiousness, what is the relationship with creativity? Michael Mount and Murray Barrick found that dependability correlated -.04 with creativity whereas achievement correlated .19. A more recent study is even more compelling. In their paper titled "Conscientiousness Is Not Always a Good Predictor of Performance: The Case of Creativity" (published in The International Journal of Creativity & Problem Solving), Roni Reiter-Palmon and her colleagues looked at the effects of each component of Conscientiousness on creativity independent of the other. Across two separate studies, they had undergraduates fill out self-report measures of Conscientiousness and creative achievement, and complete a test of creative problem solving. For their measure of Conscientiousness, the facets of competence, achievement striving, and self-discipline were combined to form the achievement component, and the facets of order, dutifulness, and deliberation were combined to form the dependability component. Alone, neither the components nor overall Conscientiousness were related to creativity. However, once they removed the common element across the two components (a disposition to work hard), they found that those scoring higher on the achievement component tended to be more creative whereas those scoring higher on the dependability component tended to be less creative. The researchers conclude that

"the use of the broader factor of Conscientiousness to predict creativity provides a limited and misleading picture...The results of this study, therefore, provide support to the recommendation that the full factor of Conscientiousness should not be used as a predictor when creativity is an important aspect of that performance."

Why are higher levels of creativity associated with disobedience and disorderliness? I can think of a few possibilities. Perhaps those who can deal with disarray also have high tolerance for ambiguity-- a trait also associated with creativity. Another possibility is that those with less tolerance for orderliness may also have less tolerance for rules in general, and by breaking rules they tend to be more creative. Yet another possibility is that creative people may have more confidence in their ideas, so see less of a need to depend on others, which eventually leads to higher levels of creativity. This lack of caring what others think (creative people are not people pleasers), and lack of a desire to do everything just right may be exactly what is needed to persevere in the long-term, despite setbacks and despite criticism. Failure is a crucial part of creativity, and too much dependability/orderliness may prevent the amount of failure necessary for creative greatness.

In his classic review of the relationship between intelligence, creativity, and personality, Frank X. Barron and David Harrington concluded that creative people tend to take more risks and are more impulsive (low Conscientiousness) but they also see themselves as competent and hard-working (high Conscientiousness). This seeming paradox (that creative people are simultaneously both high and low in Conscientious) can be resolved by recognizing there are two different aspects of Conscientiousness, each one with opposite correlations with creativity. Creative individuals tend to be more self-focused, independent, and intrinsically motivated (lower dependability/orderliness) while also being more driven, persistent, and gritty (higher industriousness/achievement).

I'd be interested to know how the different aspects of Conscientiousness differ by creative domain. In his large review, Gregory Feist found found a positive relationship between Conscientiousness and scientific performance and a negative relationship between Conscientiousness and artistic performance. Perhaps scientists can't afford to be as disorderly as artists. Or, perhaps only conventional scientists can't afford to be disorderly, whereas the revolutionary, creative scientists show the profile of the typical artist. Lots of intriguing possibilities for future research.

HI Scott. I too study the art and science of Creativity, but with an Educator's eye. Creativity is becoming a cause to stand up for, as it is demonstrably increasingly essential in Education, Environmentalism, Economics, Business, Industry; you know this. I realise you are of a more scientific bent than me, however I'd like to encourage you to not generalise, eg, that creative people don't care to please others and are disorderly, and instead give creativity the boost it needs... creative people are, in my experience, most compassionate and organised people. In support of this, I suggest you check out http://www.neiu.edu/~ourgift/Archives/SallyReis/CreativityandWomenarticle2.htm. The creative person has few answers and more questions... I also suggest that you might find great value in seeking greater creativity in your own work and learning directly from this experience. Self contemplation / reflection is the #1 activity of the creative person - this is frequently misinterpreted as selfish (ie, uncaring) BUT is rather a point of reference for the person... a mark of measurement for improvement (conscientisation).

I think it differs completely by person. For example, I know one person who is extremely creative and is messy, very self-centered, has to have attention, needs everyone to love them and therefore molds to whatever another person wants them to be, and has visions of being "great". I know another creative person who is incredibly conscientious, visually oriented-so likes things to be in their place/look good but can tolerate when they are not, likes attention sometimes, and wants people to like them though they don't compromise their values in order to achieve that. Then there's another person who is incredibly creative, a people pleaser, has a lot of compassion and is conscientious but is very negative about other people behind their backs and nice to them to their face. So for the most part the creative people I know ARE people pleasers but though maybe not always with their "art"...

The relation between conscientiousness and scientific achievement is not surprising. Scientists need to be careful and diligent, especially when you consider the plethora of knowledge we now know to be true in science. Without careful research, it is easy to draw the wrong conclusions and veer into woo territory. (Sagan, while being high on O, also scored very high on C) Making wrong or bizarre conclusions, when high openness is unchecked, is not conducive to modern science. (think Chopra)